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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 November 2020
This article examines the unusual history and legal status of the Tor de’ Specchi community, founded by Francesca Romana (d. 1440) in Rome, in the face of shifting expectations for religious women in Counter-Reformation Catholicism. It is argued that Francesca Romana had sought to carve out a religious path for women distinct from that of nuns as brides of Christ (‘sponsae Christi’). The article demonstrates the community's difficulties in maintaining this way of life in the face of Pope Pius V's 1566 bull Circa Pastoralis, which extended the Council of Trent's 1563 decrees on enclosure (clausura) to all nuns of every order.
1 Pius V, Circa Pastoralis (1566), in Codicis iuris canonici fontes, ed. P. Gasparri, i, Rome 1947, 201–3, no. 112.
2 de Azpilcueta, Martín, Consiliorum sive responsorum libri quinque iuxta ordinem decretalium dispositi, Rome 1590, 751–9Google Scholar, consilium 81. The most detailed discussion of the text, to my knowledge, is M. Sensi's ‘Tor de’ Specchi e il movimento religioso femminile nel Quattrocento’, in Romagnoli, A. Bartolomei (ed.), La canonizzazione di Santa Francesca Romana: santità, cultura e istituzioni a Roma tra medioevo ed età moderna, Florence 2013, 259–302 at pp. 286–300Google Scholar.
3 The bibliography on Francesca Romana is extensive. A good starting point is Romagnoli, A. Bartolomei (ed.), Francesca Romana: la santa, il monastero e la città alla fine del Medioevo, Florence 2009Google Scholar. Regarding ‘quasi-religious’ women in late medieval/early modern Rome see Mazzonis, Q., ‘Women's semi-religious life in Rome (15th–17th century)’, in Prebys, P. (ed.), Early modern Rome, 1341–1667, Ferrara 2011, 488–98Google Scholar; Pennings, J., ‘Semi-religious women in 15th century Rome’, Mededelingen van het Nederlands Historisch Instituut te Rome/Papers of the Dutch Institute in Rome xlvii (1987), 115–45Google Scholar; and, for Tor de’ Specchi especially, Sensi, ‘Tor de’ Specchi’. For the diversity of women's religious communities in late medieval Italy more generally see especially Mooney, C. M., ‘Nuns, tertiaries, and quasi-religious: the religious identities of late medieval Italian holy women’, Medieval Feminist Forum xlii (2006), 68–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 For a general introduction see Medioli, F., ‘An unequal law: the enforcement of “clausura” before and after the Council of Trent’, in Meek, C. (ed.), Women in Renaissance and early modern Europe, Dublin 2000, 136–52Google Scholar, and Schulenburg, T., ‘Strict active enclosure and its effects on the female monastic experience (ca. 500–1100)’, in Nichols, J. A. and Shank, L. T. (eds), Distant echoes: medieval religious women, Kalamazoo 1984, 51–86Google Scholar. Older but still useful is Cain, J. R., ‘Cloister and the apostolate of religious women’, Review for Religious xxvii/2 (1968), 243–80Google Scholar.
5 See especially the introduction to Pomata, G. and Zarri, G., I monasteri femminili come centri di cultura fra Rinascimento e Barocco, Rome 2005, pp. xxxvii–xlivGoogle Scholar, and Makowski, E. M., ‘A pernicious sort of woman’: quasi-religious women and canon lawyers in the later Middle Ages, Washington, DC 2005Google Scholar. See also Makowski, E. M., Canon law and cloistered women: Periculoso and its commentators, 1298–1545, Washington, DC 1997Google Scholar.
6 Creytens, R., ‘La riforma dei monasteri femminili dopo i Decreti Tridentini’, in Il Concilio di Trento e la riforma tridentina, Rome 1965, 45–83 at p. 67Google Scholar.
7 Evangelisti, S., ‘“We do not have it, and we do not want it”: women, power, and convent reform in Florence’, Sixteenth Century Journal xxxiv/3 (2003), 677–700 at pp. 680–6Google Scholar.
8 Strasser, U., State of virginity: gender, religion and politics in an early modern Catholic state, Ann Arbor, Mi 2004, 79Google Scholar.
9 Russo, C., I monasteri femminili di clausura a Napoli nel secolo XVII, Naples 1970, 46Google Scholar; Evangelisti, ‘“We do not have it”’, 688–9.
10 This is indicated by the evidence from Naples: Russo, I monasteri femminili, 34.
11 Castellani, G., ‘Azpilcueta, Martín de’, in Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1930, v. 719Google Scholar.
12 Navarro references this outcome in his Consilium 81, at de Azpilcueta, Consiliorum, 760, which is likewise on behalf of the Tor de’ Specchi community, and argues for the community's right to elect its ‘president’ for life (rather than for a term of three years like other nuns).
13 De Azpilcueta, Consiliorum, 752, no. 81.1.
14 Ibid. 752–3, no. 81.2–3.
15 Creytens, R., ‘La giurisprudenza della Sacra Congregazione del Concilio nella questione della clausura delle monache (1564–1576)’, Apollinaris xxxvii (1964), 251–85Google Scholar.
16 De Azpilcueta, Consiliorum, 755, no. 81.10.
17 Ibid. 757, no. 81.17.
18 Evangelisti, ‘“We do not have it”’, 693–9 at p. 695.
19 ‘aut quocumque alio nomine appellentur’: Pius v, Circa Pastoralis (1566), Codicis iuris canonici fontes, i. 201–3, no. 112.1.
20 De Azpilcueta, Consiliorum, 753, no. 81.6.
21 Elliott, D., The bride of Christ goes to hell: metaphor and embodiment in the lives of pious women, 200–1500, Philadelphia, Pa 2012, 30–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae 22, ed. I. Hilberg, New York, 1970, repr. CSEL, 1910–18; translation and annotation by Wright, F. A., in Select letters of St Jerome, Cambridge, Ma 1933Google Scholar, repr. 1980, 52–159.
23 Archibald, E. B., ‘Bride of Christ/Brautmystik’, in Wilson, K. M. and Margolis, N. (eds), Women in the Middle Ages: an encyclopedia, Westport, Cn 2004, i. 122–6Google Scholar; Bugge, J., Virginitas: an essay in the history of a medieval ideal, The Hague 1975Google Scholar.
24 Mockridge, Diane L., ‘Marital imagery in six late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century vitae of female saints’, in Coon, L. L. and others (ed.), That gentle strength: historical perspectives on women in Christianity, Charlottesville, Va 1990, 60–78Google Scholar.
25 Zarri, Gabriella, Recinti: donne, clausura e matrimonio nella prima età moderna, Bologna 2000, esp. pp. 267–82Google Scholar.
26 Raymond of Capua, Life of Catherine of Siena 1.12, AASS, April iii, 853–959 (BHL 1702), here 881E–82D, trans. C. Kearns, in The Life of Catherine of Siena, Wilmington, De 1994, 106–9.
27 For this legend, with further bibliography, see Zarri, Recinti, 288–311.
28 Sancta Birgitta, Revelaciones, published by Kungliga Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm 1956–2002, <https://riksarkivet.se/crb>; trans. D. Searby, with introduction and notes by B. Morris in The revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden, New York 2006–15, here especially bk i.2 at vol. i. 54.
29 Sancta Birgitta, Revelaciones, bk i.7; see also i.20.
30 Ibid. bk i.26.
31 Klaniczay, Gabor, ‘The mystical pregnancy of Birgitta and the invisible stigmata of Catherine: bodily signs of supernatural communication in the lives of two mystics’, in Oen, M. H. and Falkeid, U. (eds), Sanctity and female authorship: Birgitta of Sweden and Catherine of Siena, New York–London 2020, 159–78 at pp. 168–70Google Scholar.
32 Sancta Birgitta, Revelaciones, bk. vi.88 at vol. iii. 155–6 at p. 155.
33 Ibid.
34 Elliott, Bride of Christ.
35 Makowski, Canon law, 126. See also p. 109.
36 P. Canisio, Summa doctrinae christianae, Salamanca 1570, fo. 70v, trans. and cited in Zarri, G., ‘Gender, religious institutions and social discipline: the reform of the regulars’, in Brown, J. C. and Davis, R. C. (eds), Gender and society in Renaissance Italy, London 1998, 193–212 at p. 208Google Scholar.
37 Valier, A., Ricordi di monsignor Agost. Valerio, vesc. di Verona lasciati alle monache nella sua visitatione fatta l'anno del santiss. giubileo, 1575, Venice 1575Google Scholar. This edition was not available to me so here I follow the later edition (Verona 1737) reprinted by order of Giovanni Bragadino. The text is discussed by Patrizi, Elisabetta, ‘Tridentine renewal and spiritual education of women in the experience of female monasticism: the case of Verona in the sixteenth century’, Historia y memoria de la educación iv (2016), 19–48 at pp. 33–45Google Scholar.
38 Valier, Ricordi, ch. ii at pp. 17–19.
39 Ibid. ch. iv at p. 21.
40 Ibid. ch. vii at pp. 31, 33.
41 Ibid. ch. xiv at p. 56.
42 Ibid. ch. xii at pp. 50–1.
43 Lloyd, J. Barclay, ‘Saint Catherine of Siena's tomb and its place in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome: narration, translation and veneration’, Papers of the British School at Rome lxxxiii (2015), 111–48 at pp. 123–4Google Scholar.
44 Visio xli, ed. A. Bartolomei Romagnoli, in Santa Francesca Romana: edizione critica dei trattati latini di Giovanni Mattiotti, Vatican 1994, 573–5; Giornetti, R. Incarbone, ‘Tractati della vita et delli visioni’ di Santa Francesca Romana, Rome 2014, 134–6Google Scholar.
45 Fra Ippolito, ‘Beata Francisca illustris: la vita di Santa Francesca Romana scritta da fra Ippolito, 1453 circa’, ed. G. Lunardi with an introduction in 1384–1984: Ieri e oggi. Francesca Romana segno dei tempi, Rome 1984, 41–54, <http://www.gliscritti.it/blog/entry/682> (I have not been able to consult the printed version of this text). Once, at her deathbed, Fra Ippolito refers to her as the bride of Christ.
46 Vita 1, ed. Bartolomei Romagnoli, Santa Francesca Romana, 329–30; ed. Incarbone Giornetti, ‘Tractati’, 1–2; Fra Ippolito, Beata Francisca illustris; referenced by S. Nanni, ‘Sant'Alessio e Roma’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome: Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines cxxiv/2 (2012), <https://journals.openedition.org/mefrim/916>, ¶21.
47 For an introduction to the cult of St Alexius in Rome see Nanni, ‘Sant'Alessio e Roma’.
48 Giornetti edn, 7.
49 ‘Nel segno dell'oblazione: Francesca Romana e la Regola di Tor de' Specchi’, ed. A. Bartolomei Romagnoli, in Romagnoli, Francesca Romana: la santa, 87–160, 155–6, no. 1; ‘L'istituzione delle oblate di Tor de’ Specchi secondo i documenti’, ed. Placido Lugano, Rivista storica benedettina xiv (1923), 272–308 at pp. 274–5, no. 1.
50 Visio xxiv (20 Mar. 1432) (Romagnoli edn), 495–8; (Giornetti edn), 77–80.
51 ‘Nel segno’ (Romagnoli edn), 146–7, no. 2.
52 De Azpilcueta, Consiliorum, 758, no. 81.22.
53 The papal bull dates from 1433 and was directed to Archbishop Gaspare, the vicar of Rome, who was to verify the situation and see to its execution: Latin ed. Bartolomei Romagnoli, ‘Nel segno’, 147–8, no. 3; Italian ed. Lugano, ‘L'istituzione’, 279–81, no. 2; it was succeeded by a bull issued by Gaspare to the oblates: ed. Bartolomei Romagnoli, ‘Nel segno’, 149–51, no. 4; ed. Lugano, 281–4, no. 3.
54 De Azpilcueta, Consiliorum, 756, no. 81.14.
55 P. Marchetti, ‘Architettura a Tor de’ Specchi’, in Romagnoli, Francesca Romana: la santa, 161–86, 175–85. In the years after Francesca's death these buildings were combined under one roof. I am grateful to an anonymous reader for advising consideration of this spatial perspective.
56 Brenda Bolton, ‘Daughters of Rome: all one in Christ Jesus’, in W. J. Sheils and D. S. Wood (eds), Women in the Church (Studies in Church History xxvii, 1990), 101–15 at pp. 109–15; ‘S. Domenico e S. Sisto’, in Monastic Matrix, A scholarly resource for the study of women's religious communities from 400 to 1600 ce, <https://monasticmatrix.osu.edu/monasticon/s-domenico-e-s-sisto>. For the architecture and archaeology of female monastic space more generally see Gilchrist, Roberta, Gender and material culture: the archaeology of religious women, New York 1994Google Scholar.
57 Lugano, ‘L'istituzione’, 275–6.
58 Romagnoli, Santa Francesca Romana, introduction at pp. 29–55.
59 Ibid. 221–3.
60 As in Visio lxx (Mary presents Christ at the temple), (Romagnoli edn), 675–6 at p. 675; (Giornetti edn), 206–7 at p. 206.
61 Cf. the visions from Dominican convents in fourteenth-century Southern Germany: Hale, Rosemary, ‘Imitatio Mariae: motherhood motifs in devotional memoirs’, Mystics Quarterly xvi (1990), 193−203Google Scholar.
62 Visio xii (Romagnoli edn), 435–8; (Giornetti edn), 38–9.
63 Visio xiii (Romagnoli edn), 438–42; (Giornetti edn), 39–42.
64 Visio lxxxi (St Stephen's day, 26 Dec. 1439), (Romagnoli edn), 700–3; (Giornetti edn), 225–6.
65 Visio lxvi (Christmas 1433) (Romagnoli edn), 666–7 at p. 667; (Giornetti edn), 201–2.
66 Visio xlix (Christmas 1432; the vision in which Francesca receives communion from St Peter) (Romagnoli edn), 610–16 at pp. 611–12; (Giornetti edn), 160–4 at p. 161.
67 Visio lii (1 Mar. 1433) (Romagnoli edn), 623–6 at p. 624; (Giornetti edn), 169–71.
68 Visio xlv.4 (Romagnoli edn), 586.
69 Visio xlv (23 Sept. 1432) (Romagnoli edn), 585–90; (Giornetti edn), 144–8. In another instance where the vernacular text refers to Christ as Francesca's spouse (‘la beata vedeva lo suo divino sposo’), the Latin text has changed this to ‘Dei humilis ancilla suum spetiosissimum Dominum et dilectum preclare speculabatur’: Visio xii (Romagnoli edn), 436; (Giornetti edn), 38.
70 This conclusion is based on the entry for ‘Gesù Cristo’ as ‘Sposo’, in Romagnoli's index (p. 973).
71 ‘Ordinationi Statuiti per la Beata Francesca’, ed. G. Lunardi, in ‘L'istituzione di Tor de'Specchi’, in G. Picasso (ed.), Una santa tutta romana: Saggi e ricerche nel VI centenario della nascita di Francesca Bussa dei Ponziani (1383–1984), Siena 1984, 71–93 at pp. 87–93 (Appendix). These are translated by S. M. Scanlan in ‘Doorways to the demonic and divine: visions of santa Francesca Romana and the frescoes of Tor de' Specchi’, unpubl. PhD diss. Brown 2010, 176–83, appendix A.
72 ‘Ordinationi Statuiti’, 2 (Lunardi edn), 87.
73 Ibid. 38, 40 (Lunardi edn), 87–8.
74 Ibid. 43 (Lunardi edn), 88.
75 Ibid. 36, 49, 67 (Lunardi edn), 89, 90, 92.
76 See the documents in Romagnoli, ‘Nel segno’, and Lugano, ‘L'istituzione’.
77 Ed. Bartolomei Romagnoli, ‘Nel segno,’ 157–8, no. 8; ed. Lugano, ‘L'istituzione’, 300–3, no. 8.
78 Kaftal, G., ‘Three scenes from the legend of Santa Francesca Romana’, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery xi (1948), 51–61Google Scholar; Scanlan, ‘Doorways’, 17–61.
79 For an overview of the cycle see Rossi, A., ‘Le opere del monastero di Tor de' Specchi in Roma’, Bollettino d'arte i/8 (1907), 4–22Google Scholar. For discussion of these and the following frescoes see also Scanlan, ‘Doorways’, with reference to older bibliography.
80 Marchetti, ‘Architettura’, 166.
81 Ibid. 167.
82 Ibid. 168–73 with plan at p. 167, Fig. 5.
83 For the bull see Lugano, P., ‘Santa Francesca Romana nella memoria dei contemporanei e dei posteri’, Rivista storica benedettina iii (1908), 40–200 at pp. 166–76Google Scholar.
84 Barone, G., ‘La canonizzazione di Francesca Romana (1608): la riproposta di un modello agiografico medievale’, in Zari, G. (ed.), Finzione e santità tra medioevo ed età moderna, Torino 1991, 264–79Google Scholar, and ‘Francesca Romana santa della riforma cattolica’, in Romagnoli, La canonizzazione, 125–38.
85 Orsino, Giulio, Vita della B. Francesca Romana Roma, Rome 1608Google Scholar.
86 Ibid. 1.2, p. 16.
87 Ibid. 3.4, p. 182.
88 Visio C (undated), (Romagnoli edn), 720–1; (Giornetti edn), 235.
89 Orsino, Vita 5.27, p. 502.
90 Lucetta Scaraffia, ‘Il registro della memoria: per una storia delle oblate di Tor de’ Specchi’, in Romagnoli, La canonizzazione, 335–62 at p. 348.